dairylives wrote:ugh, the "No signs" rule extends only to those who are impeding traffic. Which none of them really were. Picture takers are far , far worse. If you don't like something, just get over it. Just because you can't tolerate people acting differently than yourself doesnt mean there should be a ban. I'm not gonna get into this, but there's threads for you to look at that explain the ridiculousness of the anti-sign crowd.

I've been to two Youmacons and upwards of twenty cons overall. Youma is the only convention remaining where no signs is not enforced.

It isn't a manner of "people acting differently" and me not being able to tolerate that. You defend sign holders as if they are minorities being oppressed. Please give me several reasons why sign holders should be enforced, as opposed to "if you don't like something, just get over it".

Picture takers are not harassing me to hug them and then acting dejected when I reject. Picture takers do not jump in front of me as I am walking somewhere and whine "FREE HUGGGG?". Picture takers do not shove a sign in my face and beg me to hug them.

The maturity level of the average Youmacon attendee is ridiculous. My friend got running-tackle-glomped about four times within the span of a couple hours at Youma. I've been with her pretty much every time she's worn the same costume over the course of the past year that she was glomped repeatedly in and this was the first time I'd seen such a large amount of glompers.

Every other con I've been to, etiquette towards glomping and sign holding is ENFORCED and mentioned in the PROGRAM ITSELF. If you tried any of this bull at Otakon, you would definitely receive a stern talking to.

You can't say "none of them were impeding traffic". I know for a fact some of them were on a first hand basis. The fact that even one person impeded traffic overrules the however many you saw in a positive light and "enjoyed" who weren't doing so.

Yes, picture takers get in the way, but picture takers are also just minor. You can walk around someone taking a picture, you can wait, you can tell them to move. Yes, you can do it to someone holding a free hugs sign too, but that still doesn't change the fact that they're holding that sign and someone is bound to hug them and block traffic or someone will undoubtably JOIN them and create a line that blocks traffic.

Not to mention, did you ever really consider how unhygienic it is? Right now, we have a Swine Flu epidemic going on. Please consider how totally awesome it is to have one person hugging dozens of people who then go on to hug dozens more people. Then please assume that one person has something infectious. I stand next to someone in a line for the Rave or even an autograph who just got done hugging half of the convention by proxy. She coughs on me. I'm now sick, and I return to my college, where I get more people sick because I can't afford to miss class or work.

I don't care how many threads there are calling me ridiculous because I disapprove of free hug signs just like every convention staff at every other con I go to. And unless someone offers a valid, logical argument other than preteens just want to have fun lol ignore it they aren't hurting you!!!! I'm going to continue viewing them in a negative light and hoping that Youma staff will finally work on cutting back on them.

I had an amazing weekend. Anything bad that happened is not under the control of Youmacon staff so i wont bother posting it here.

I just wanted to say that attending Youmacon always reminds me of everything I love about Anime Conventions. Just when I feel like I'm starting to wind down about cons, I attend Youmacon again and cons become the best thing on earth to me all over. Thank you.

KoriStarfire (The user name I have on these forums pre-dates my cosplay days! #ImOld)

Seraphim wrote:- The lack of enforcement on "No Signs". I don't even know if Youmacon HAS a No Signs policy, but if they do, holy crap do you guys need to get on that.

There is no No Signs policy. There's only limits to what can be on the signs. It's in the front of the program with the rules.

Having only limits as to what can be on the signs isn't exactly a no signs policy.

... Er, that's the point, sweetheart. As I said, a No Sign policy DOES NOT EXIST. You can have as many signs as you like as long as you are not clogging up passageways. There are, however, set rules for what is allowed to be displayed.

If you actually look at the comment, that's what I said. We don't enforce no signs because there is no such rule.

Two cents here, I was pretty anti-sign leading up to the con, but you know, it really wasn't that awful this year, I was pretty impressed at the level of decency the free hugs sign people had, good on you guys, way to make me change my mind about you.

(In before people start gloating "I TOLD YOU SO")

The Velvet Room | Metagame 3 | How to Con: Elegant Garden Party | to be revealed | to be revealed | Youmacon Achievements 2014

There were two girls with "Hug me if you think I'm cute," standing outside the artist's alley. I only saw the one, and when I went up to hug her, the other one like... assaulted me. She just stormed toward me with this great purpose and I didn't want to make her feel bad, so I hugged her, but. I was kind of scared. >>; She wasn't smiling at all. In fact, she was looked really angry.

Seraphim wrote:- The lack of enforcement on "No Signs". I don't even know if Youmacon HAS a No Signs policy, but if they do, holy crap do you guys need to get on that.

There is no No Signs policy. There's only limits to what can be on the signs. It's in the front of the program with the rules.

Having only limits as to what can be on the signs isn't exactly a no signs policy.

... Er, that's the point, sweetheart. As I said, a No Sign policy DOES NOT EXIST. You can have as many signs as you like as long as you are not clogging up passageways. There are, however, set rules for what is allowed to be displayed.

If you actually look at the comment, that's what I said. We don't enforce no signs because there is no such rule.

Seraphim wrote:- The lack of enforcement on "No Signs". I don't even know if Youmacon HAS a No Signs policy, but if they do, holy crap do you guys need to get on that.

There is no No Signs policy. There's only limits to what can be on the signs. It's in the front of the program with the rules.

Having only limits as to what can be on the signs isn't exactly a no signs policy.

... Er, that's the point, sweetheart. As I said, a No Sign policy DOES NOT EXIST. You can have as many signs as you like as long as you are not clogging up passageways. There are, however, set rules for what is allowed to be displayed.

If you actually look at the comment, that's what I said. We don't enforce no signs because there is no such rule.

the no sign issue always comes up every year...there's going to be people heartbroken if it's kept and there's going to be people heartbroken if it's taken away...to compromise you know, meet in the middle for both sides, youmacon does not completely ban them, but has limits on them...it's the best thing really.

I'm not someone who holds up a sign, and I don't hug such people either...who knows when they last bathed and stuff, you know? but if someone is getting a little too close and in your face with a sign, why don't you just tell them to back off a bit?

I have to agree with the comment about the signs. I had a hard time getting onto the elevators because the area was clogged up and half the time not even with people who are trying to get onto the stupid things.

Also my girlfriend refused to hug someone who was offering free hugs and they pulled on her costume. I found that it was really inappropriate and it's not just the people with the signs who can be rude like that but at this convention that was our experience.

Overall we had a great time. The elevators were congested but not impossible to navigate. We had a great time running our panels minus the slight tech difficulties and we're excited for the new convention space for next year!

We also really enjoyed the masquerade ball. It wasn't too packed full of people and the lighting and music were perfect. The dance lessons were great, too, and the two together made for the most enjoyable portion of the weekend for me. The price for the tickets, too, were -very- reasonable! We look forward to something like that next year, too!

If there's anything I would add that we did not get the chance to mention in the con feedback (which is something that we're only just realizing was a problem now) is that it would be really helpful if there was a rule in the book or something like that which mentioned that if you're wanting to video record a panel, to be sure to ask the panelists first. We've already seen one of our 18+ panels on YouTube and it makes us a little uncomfortable. It seems like something that would be a common courtesy kind of thing but... it is apparently not.

Anyways, guys, thanks for running a really great and really, really organized convention! As always it was an improvement from last year and our whole group had an exceptionally great time!

AWOL Panelists(Team Leader)2010:No! Stop! It Feels Good!- A Hentai Panel-18+Yuri: Doing it the Right Way-18+Yaoi: From Top to Bottom-18+Shoujo-ai: Girl Love Without the Sticky MessTen Special Animals... And a Cat (Fruits Basket Fanpanel)

For those of you that are giving feed back about the game room please copy the game part to the game thread where we have feed back. I'm sorry to say I do not have the time to read every single post for them T_T. I'm still playing catch up with school/sleep/work/equipment checks.

I just thought of something concerning the ball and the DJ. I went to request a song (Love Shack), and while the DJ did have it he said that since it wasn't a strict "swing or waltz" he couldn't play it because he wasn't allowed to. I didn't see a lot of people requesting songs, so I'm not sure if this would open up a big can of worms, but would it be acceptable to allow songs to be played that were requested even if they aren't swing or waltz-y types?